Marion Recycling Mill Fire Under Investigation

Several hundred were evacuated

Morgantown Dominion Post
10 May 2010
By Evelyn Ryan

Exactly how chemicals stored at a paper recycling mill in Marion County caught fire during the weekend was still under investigation Sunday night.

Firefighters were called to the SFK Pulp Recycling Plant at 7:42 p.m. Saturday for what company officials described in a news release as “a small fire in a chemical storage room.”

Several hundred residents on both sides of the Monongahela River at Rivesville were evacuated from their homes for about three hours as a precaution, said Winfield District Volunteer Fire Department Chief John Cogar. Shelters were established at the Baxter VFD and East Fairmont Junior High School for those who were temporarily relocated.

The safeguards built into the room at SFK to control the effects of a chemical release worked as designed, Mill Manager Ryan DeBerry said in a statement.

“The chemical stored in the room is formamidine sulfinic acid, and is used by SFK as a reducing agent in our paper and pulp industry,” he said.

“Some gases from the incident were ventilated, as part of the safeguard system, to the outside atmosphere. The Office of Homeland Security set up monitoring in areas surrounding the SFK property and, according to that office, no harmful gases were detected at those locations.

“Certainly SFK regrets the need for the precautionary evacuation of some local residents as part of the accident response.”

The company is working with regulatory agencies to investigate what happened, DeBerry said.

“The safeguards installed in our operations worked as they should,” he stressed in his statement. “We remain committed to safeguarding our employees and the community.”

The plant’s automatic sprinkler system “kicked in and kept things under control to a degree,” Cogar said. “We had to go in and help it along with hose lines, but their product kept it cool.”

The product in the room was stable as long as it was kept cool, he said. The firefighters remained at the plant overnight to monitor the fire site, and do some mitigation as needed until they could turn it over to the plant manager about 6 a.m. Sunday, Cogar said.

Cogar said Winfield firefighters went into the plant to assess the scene. Once they arrived it was determined that HazMat was needed, so the Monongalia County Hazardous Incident Response Team (HIRT) was called.

Those who went in to smother the fire wore airtight HazMat suits to make sure they were not exposed to any gases, he said.

Mike Bean, a Mon County HIRT member who was there, said the fumes given off by the chemical “are very toxic.”

“The fire was quickly brought under control with no injuries to mill personnel,” DeBerry said.

Marion County 911 dispatchers called out Winfield District, Pleasant Valley, Bunner Ridge, Barrackville, Monongah, Rivesville and Baxter volunteer fire departments. Marion County Rescue was at the scene, as was the Red Cross.

Winfield District, Pleasant Valley, Bunners Ridge and Marion County Rescue went to the plant; Barrackville and Monongah helped evacuate the east side while Rivesville and Baxter assisted with the Rivesville evacuation, Marion County 911 said.

According to the company website, SFK.ca, the Fairmont Mill manufactures lowcost, high-quality air-dried RBK pulp for sale on the open market. It is one of only two mills of its kind in North America, and one of three in the world. The mill primarily supplies the pulp to manufacturers of uncoated freesheet, commercial and away-from-home tissue and coated paper.

The company website lists the stages involved in transforming wastepaper into RBK pulp as pulping; cleaning and screening; kneading, dispersion and flotation deinking; washing and bleaching; and drying.